Chinese police rescue 150 cats headed for dinner tables

Nearly 150 cats bound for slaughterhouses have been rescued by police in eastern China, an international animal welfare organisation said on Tuesday.
The animals were crammed into rusty cages when they were found by police in the eastern city of Jinan in Shandong province, Humane Society International (HSI) said in a statement.
A gang placed sparrows in cages as bait and used a remote control to shut the traps as soon as each cat entered, an activist with local animal rights group VShine said.
“It was shocking to see the state they were in, many of them emaciated and crying out,” an activist, who only offered their last name Huang, said in a statement to HSI.
“Our discovery of dozens of live sparrows used as bait to lure the cats was also a big shock.” Most of the rescued felines are believed to have been household pets and have been sent to local animal shelters, the statement added. Activists also found 31 sparrows — a protected species in China — at the scene and released them back into the wild.
China has no animal cruelty prevention laws, but the suspects could face penalties for hunting the birds, property theft and for violations of animal epidemic prevention rules. Around 10 million dogs and 4m cats are killed for human consumption each year in China, according to HSI. Agencies